Happy Home
by andAshes
Summary: He didn't love her. She didn't love him, but they didn't need to love each other, they just needed to get along well enough to raise a child. RikuAerith


This isn't anything serious, just a little drabble that I'm using to waste time. The sentences run together and it's pretty much just a little ramble on stuff that's been on my mind.

I've been listening to Kimya Dawson lately and it's got me inspired again, and so this is what I've come up with from listening to a few little songs. So I hope you like, and as I've said, this is nothing serious

_i cannot disguise the fact that i'm nervous when we are together and so i fantasize that the nights will get shorter and the days will get better  
i feel a kick inside_

The nights lasted for only a few hours now. They used to last hours and she'd sit awake for what seemed like forever and just watch the stars through her window, the fan blowing the outside air in a circle across the room.

Now she slept through them, laying on her side with her legs curled protectively to her stomach, behind her was a boy who was younger than her but who seemed years beyond her in his maturity and responsability. He'd wrap his arm around her when he thought she was asleep, one hand would rest on her stomach and he'd press his nose into her hair. His palm was always warn and her heart seemed to race if she was awake when he did this. He didn't often show her attention like that. His hands stayed against hers or around her shoulders. It was only sometimes in the evenings that his cheek would find her stomach and they'd lay together with her head on his leg.

Their relationship was still processing. They were both new to it, neither of them knew how to make it work and keep it going. Sometimes he got moody and sometimes she was too nosy and she couldn't say she loved him yet and didn't think he was anywhere near loving her.

But she cared for him, and tonight his hand was across her stomach and his lips were in a smile against her naked back. He didn't stay over too often, he didn't at first either, he stayed away as if he were scared but she pulled him in because she didn't want to be alone and she was sick of it. She was tired of being so cut off from everyone and she held him until he gave in and put his arms around her and eventually carried her to bed.

Love could come later, for now it was just them and they could stumble around together in their sad attempt to at least find things they liked about each other. He was too quiet and moodier than the one she had originally been trying to replace. If she'd be with anyone it wasn't him, it wouldn't be him because she wouldn't have chosen him because she never thought of it. It was the night she broke into the palms of his hands and his shoulder and then down to his lap where all of this started and he bent his head to her breast and she took ahold of his hair as he loved her with his hands and then with the rest of him. She had forgotten in the heat and her sadness and his understanding that she felt the same as he did that they needed something more. But she pressed her head back into the pillow and created a mess of her long hair and clung to his strong back and kissed his ear as she shuddered.

Aerith couldn't explain how she felt when she realized that she should have stopped to think, and she could've swallowed little pills and washed her body from it but she didn't want to. Not because she wanted to keep a boy that was as hard to grasp and keep close as sand. She didn't think her body, her mind could handle it. When she told him it was raining and she told him and he inspected the test and left. She ran out after him and grabbed his arm and his hand and pulled it to her chest, clinging to his arm and biting her lip. Water ran down her face, she closed her eyes and he kissed her.

He didn't know what to do either, but his morals kept him from running and that look in those pretty green eyes. He couldn't just leave, not that she'd be alone or that she needed anyone to be there with and for her because she lived with all her friends but that he wanted to be strong and he wanted to say he was a good dad and that he hadn't ran away.

Her inner thighs were sticky and she smiled into her arm and mess of hair, in her stomach something moved and Riku's hand pressed against the skin and she placed her hand over his and squeezed and turned to him, finding his lips but missing and kissing the place between the corner of his lips and jaw. He changed the angle and connected their mouths and these were the moments that told her that maybe she could love him one day.

Everyone's reactions had been different. Cid had stormed around and told her she was an idiot for not using anything to stop this, she had only smiled and he collapsed on the couch in a huff and took extra special care for her to keep her and the baby happy. Even though he didn't like Riku he was still the daddy and he accepted it. Sora had squealed and Yuffie from the next room had matched the noise and the two of them squealed and giggled and clung to each other as they ran out of breath and she knew Riku's eyes would have darkened because she wasn't the one Riku had been looking to sleep with. But Aerith never planned on sleeping with Riku and she never told Cloud that she was having a baby he heard from someone else and he never mentioned it. Not even when her stomach swelled and Sora pressed his hands to her belly with wide eyes and listened and felt.

She lay back against the pillow and Riku took his hand back, running it along the soft skin of her stomach and the movements under her skin that was his child as if the thought had yet to truly sink in and Aerith was glowing with happiness as she knelt in the garden and leaned over her heavy belly and watered and cut and planted flowers.

It didn't bother her that he didn't love her. He didn't need to she just wanted him to be there beside her. She wanted to hold his hand and she wanted to kiss his mouth and cuddle and the sex was good too. She was twenty three and he was only eighteen but they were mother and father and their lives were wound together.

In the morning she woke up to pee and wobbled to her feet when she was done. Her legs were always so weak in the morning and the baby was kicking and squirming in her stomach as she walked downstairs wearing a t-shirt that stopped at her belly button and the shorts that Riku had taken off of her their first time and started cooking breakfast and sipping chocolate milk as she rubbed her belly.

Riku wandered down in his boxers and ignored her as he sat down at the table with a glass of water. He didn't say anything until she turned off the stove and set the food on the counter and sat down. He got up and on his way back down he pulled her chin towards him and kissed her full on the mouth and she melted a little and her heart raced and her stomach tumbled and kicked and she smiled through her breakfast and figured that what she wanted right now was a doughnut.

They weren't perfect but maybe she almost loved him and after he cleaned up his plate he grabbed her hand and massaged her wrist and kissed the back of her hand before going back to her room. He came down fully dressed and kissed her again, letting it linger and last and then he walked away. Telling her he was going home and that he'd see her later.

She lit a candle in the next room and lay down on the floor with her hands behind her head and watched the smoke touch the roof as her stomach woke up and she breathed in and out and woke up later to big blue eyes and spiky brown hair and a grin the size of her belly and a handful of powered doughnuts from Sora's hands that they shared as they sat on the ground.

The next time she saw Riku she was standing in his door way and he was drinking water or something and smiling that soft smile of his with hair in his eyes and his hands empty as one of them set the glass beside him and the other wound around her waist. His kiss tasted fresh like mint and water and she leaned into him as they stood in the door and she was still half outside and grinned under her breath and through her teeth as her heart smacked against her ribs like she was running for hours even though she had only been walking for the past three minutes and twenty seconds it takes to get to his house. It's the next night and he brings her inside and closes the door behind him, his voice is soft and tender when he tells her what he was thinking of before she arrived and that he questions himself and she kisses his ear and he shrugs and smiles and keeps thinking. Silent this time and stood there with one arm around her.

Aerith didn't know if she could call Riku her boyfriend or lover or anything but that he was important to her and the one to blame for new stretch marks forming on her stomach and the one that would kiss her without hesitation or question and she hoped he'd love her one day because she was certian she was starting to love him. Maybe she was just filled with love because of how heavy she felt now, maybe everything seemed too happy but the colours of Riku's kitchen were warm and tender like his hands when he pushed hair from her forehead and licked the tip of her nose as she wrinkled her own and pushed against his chest with a giggle.

Her arms moved around Riku, he held her close as she sighed into his hair.


End file.
